Marble (toy)


A marble is a small spherical object often made from glass, clay, steel, plastic, or agate. These toys can be used for a variety of games called marbles, as well being placed in marble runs or races, or created as a form of art. Sizes may vary, but usually range from about in diameter. They are often collected, both for nostalgia and for their aesthetic colors. In northern England, the game and objects are called "taws", with larger marbles being called "bottle washers", named after the use of a marble in Codd-neck bottles.

Games

History

In the early twentieth century, small balls of stone from about 2500 BCE, identified by archaeologists as marbles, were found by excavation near Mohenjo-daro, in a site associated with the Indus Valley Civilization. In modern India the game is called "kanche". Marbles are often mentioned in Roman literature, as in Ovid's poem "Nux", and there are many examples of marbles from excavations of sites associated with Chaldeans of Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt. They were commonly made of clay, stone or glass. Marbles arrived in Britain, imported from the Low Countries, during the medieval era.
In 1503, the town council of Nuremberg, Germany, limited the playing of marble games to a meadow outside the town. The name "marble", used for the little toy balls, comes from this region and era, and refers to such balls being made of marble. At this point, marbles were made in mills and quarries by polishing small fragments of real stone like marble, agate, alabaster, limestone, and even brass.
It is unknown where marbles were first manufactured. A German glassblower invented marble scissors, a device for making marbles, in 1846. Ceramic marbles entered inexpensive mass production in the 1870s.
The game has become popular throughout the US and other countries. The first mass-produced toy marbles made in the US were made in Akron, Ohio, by S. C. Dyke, in the early 1890s. Some of the first US-produced glass marbles were also made in Akron by James Harvey Leighton. In 1903, Martin Frederick Christensen—also of Akron—made the first machine-made glass marbles on his patented machine. His company, M. F. Christensen & Son Co., manufactured millions of toy and industrial glass marbles until they ceased operations in 1917. The next US company to enter the glass marble market was Akro Agate. This company was started by Akronites in 1911, but located in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Today, there is only one American-based toy marble manufacturer: Marble King, in Paden City, West Virginia.

Types of games

Various games can be played with marbles.
One game popular in the United Kingdom and United States is ring taw, where a ring is drawn on the ground and a number of small marbles placed within it. Players take turns to flick a larger "taw" marble at these marbles, attempting to knock them out of the ring.
In kanche, players prepare for the game by standing behind a line and trying to flick their marble towards a designated hole, with the player who manages to flick their marble closest to the hole getting the chance to go first in the game. The marbles are all then placed in the center of a circle, with each player getting one striking marble and the chance to flick their marble in an attempt to strike the circle-marbles out of the circle. Each marble thus displaced is acquired by the striker, and once all the marbles have been struck out of the circle, the player with the most marbles wins the game.
Similarly, in pili goli, the goal of the game is to flick a striking marble in order to knock other marbles laid around the field into holes that have been dug into the ground.

World championship

The British and World Marbles Championship has been held at Tinsley Green, West Sussex, England, every year since 1932. Traditionally, the marbles-playing season started on Ash Wednesday and lasted until midday on Good Friday: playing after that was thought to bring bad luck. More than 20 teams from around the world take part in the championship, each Good Friday; German teams have been successful several times since 2000, although local teams from Crawley, Copthorne and other Sussex and Surrey villages often take part as well; the first championship in 1932 was won by Ellen Geary, a young girl from London.

Gameplay terminology

  • "Knuckle down": the position adopted at the start line at the beginning of a match. The player begins with their knuckle against the ground.
  • "Quitsies": allows any opponent to stop the game without consequence. Players can either have "quitsies" or "no quitsies".
  • "Keepsies" : the player keeps all the marbles they win.
  • "Elephant stompies": when called, it allows a player to stomp their marble level with the ground surface, making it very difficult for other players to hit.
  • "Bombies": when called, it allows a player to take one or two steps while holding their marble and, while closing one eye, to line up over one of the opponent's marbles and drop the marble trying to hit the marble on the ground.
  • "Leaning tops": when called, a shooter leans in on their off hand for leverage over an indentation on any type of surface or obstacle.
  • A "taw" or "shooter" is generally a larger marble used to shoot with, and "ducks" are marbles to be shot at.
  • Various names refer to the marble's size. Any marble larger than the majority may be termed a boulder, bonker, cosher, goen, masher, plumper, popper, shooter, thumper, smasher, goom, noogie, taw, bumbo, crock, bumboozer, bowler, tonk, tronk, godfather, tom bowler, fourer, giant, dobber, dobbert, hogger, biggie, jumbo or toebreaker. A marble smaller than the majority is a peawee, peewee or mini. A "grandfather" is the largest marble, the size of a billiards ball or tennis ball.
  • Various names for different marble types : Marleys, prit, Kong, King Kong, steely. Names can be combined: e.g. prit-Kong.

    Types of marbles

There are various types of marbles, and names vary from locality to locality.
  • Aggie – made of agate or glass resembling agate, with various patterns like in the alley,popular in Europe and the United States
  • Alley or real – made of marble or alabaster, streaked with wavy or other patterns with exotic names like corkscrew, spiral, snake, ribbon, onyx, swirl, bumblebee, and butterfly
  • * Ade – strands of opaque white and color, making lemon-ade, lime-ade, orange-ade, etc.
  • * Cat's eye or catseye – central eye-shaped colored inserts or cores
  • ** Beachball – three colors and six vanes
  • ** Devil's eye – red with yellow eye
  • Red devils – same color scheme as a devil's eye but swirly
  • * Clambroth – equally spaced opaque lines on a milk-white opaque base. Rare clams can have blue or black base glass. Medium-high value for antique marbles; rare base color valued much higher.
  • * Lutz – antique, handmade German swirl, containing bands of fine copper flakes that glitter like gold. Erroneously thought to have been invented by noted glassmaker Nicholas Lutz. Medium-high value for antique marbles, depending on specific sub-type of Lutz design.
  • * Oilie or oily – opaque with a rainbow, iridescent finish
  • * Onionskin – antique, handmade German swirl, with many closely packed surface streaks. Medium price range for antique marbles.
  • * Opaque – a popular marble that comes in many colors
  • * Oxblood – a streaky patch resembling blood
  • * Pearls – opaque with single color with mother of pearl finish
  • * Toothpaste – also known as plainsies in Canada. Wavy streaks usually with red, blue, black, white, orange.
  • * Turtle – wavy streaks containing green and yellow
  • Bumblebee – modern, machine-made marble; mostly yellow with two black strips on each side
  • China – glazed porcelain, with various patterns similar to an alley marble. Geometric patterns have low value; flowers or other identifiable objects can command high prices.
  • * Plaster – a form of china that is unglazed
  • Commie or common – made of clay; natural color or monochrome coloration. Made in huge quantities during nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
  • * Bennington – clay fired in a kiln with salt glaze—usually brown, often blue. Other colorations fairly scarce. Fairly low value.
  • * Crock – made from crockery clay
  • Croton alley or jasper – glazed and unglazed china marbled with blue
  • Crystal or clearie or purie – any clear colored glass – including "opals," "glimmers," "bloods," "rubies," etc. These can have any number of descriptive names such as "deep blue sea", "blue moon", "green ghost", "brass bottle", "bloody Mary".
  • * Princess – a tinted crystal
  • * Galaxy – modern, machine-made marble; lots of dots inserted to look like a sky of stars
  • Indian – antique, handmade German marble; dark and opaque, usually black, with overlaid groups of color bands; usually white, and one or more other colors. Can also have many colors like blue, green and scarlet. Medium price range for antique marbles.
  • Mica – antique, handmade German marble; glassy to translucent with streaks or patches of mica, ranging from clear to misty. Value depends on glass color.
  • Steely – made of steel; a steely was traditionally made from a flat piece of steel folded into a sphere and showed a cross where the corners all come together, but other versions of a steely are solid steel ball bearings.
  • Sulphide – antique, handmade German marble; large clear glass sphere with a small statuette or figure inside. Most common are domesticated animals such as dogs, cats, cows, etc.; then wild animals; human figures are scarce; inanimate objects such as a train or pocket watch are very rare and command high prices. The interior figures are made of white clay or kaolin, and appear a silvery color due to light refraction. A sulphide with a colored-glass sphere, or with a painted figure inside, is also very rare and brings a high price. Like other types of antique marbles, sulphides have been reproduced and faked in large quantities.
  • Swirly – a common marble made out of glass with one swirly color
  • Shooter – any marble but in a bigger size
  • Tiger – clear with orange-yellow stripes
  • Baby – white with colors visible on the outside
  • Tom bowler – large glass marble at least twice as big as a normal marble